I am a Tombstone Tourist: someone who loves to wander cemeteries. I find it akin to visiting a museum: an opportunity to enjoy rarely seen sculpture, intricate carvings, and amazing architecture, all in a tranquil outdoor setting. This blog is about cemetery culture, art, history, issues of death, and genealogy - subjects of current relevance. I usually find something that intrigues me and makes me want to dig deeper. Care to join me? Read on...

Friday, November 8, 2013

Jack the Ripper - 125 Years Later - A Look Back at the Final Murder

Whitechapel

Lord Mayor's Day

It
had been a chilly night in Whitechapel but the day promised to be fair and full
of fun. After all, it was November 9th the day of the annual Lord
Mayor’s celebrations. But the day would not bode well for some.

Thomas Bowyer

Window to Kelly's Room

Just
before 11 a.m., Thomas Bowyer knocked on the door of 13 Miller’s Court, the
flat where Mary Jane Kelly lived. He had been sent to pick up the rent money she
was six weeks behind on. When there was no answer, Bowyer peered in a window -
and discovered Kelly’s mutilated corpse lying on her bed. She would be the
final victim of England’s notorious Jack the Ripper.

Mine Explosion

Limerick, Ireland

Mary Jane Kelly or Marie Jeanette, as she was sometimes called, was born in Limerick,
Ireland in the early 1860s of well-to-do people, or so she said. Nothing is
really known of her family or upbringing. She married a coal miner named Davies
around 1879 but he died in a mine explosion a couple of years later.

Joseph Barnett

Kelly
claimed to have lived with family until she began working as a prostitute in
the early 1880s. She told of being taken to France to live as a courtesan but
said she did not like the country and returned to England. She lived with
several men in the East End before moving in with Joseph Barnett in 1887.

Billingsgate Fish Market

Barnett
worked at Billingsgate Fish Market for a time, but when he lost his job, Kelly
began to turn tricks again. After an argument about another prostitute staying
with them, Barnett moved out of the room they shared in Miller’s Court on
October 30th, just ten days before her body would be discovered
there.

Mary Jane Kelly

Mary Jane was a quiet woman when she was sober. She could sometimes be heard singing
Irish ballads, but when she was drunk she could become quarrelsome, even
violent.

George Hutchinson

On
the night of November 8th, Kelly was seen taking a man into her room
around midnight. Then about 2 a.m. local laborer George Hutchinson met her coming
down the street. She asked him for a loan of sixpence. He refused, telling her
that he was broke. Hutchinson watched as she approached another man, one he
described as being of “Jewish appearance.”He followed them to Kelly’s room and stood watch until almost 3:00 a.m.

Kelly and a Stranger

Three
days after Kelly’s murder, Hutchinson provided police with a very detailed
description of the man he had seen her with – down to the color of his
eyelashes – although it had been a dark winter night.

Abberline

The
police were divided on whether Hutchinson could be the Ripper. Inspector
Fredrick Abberline questioned him and felt he was telling the truth.

Anderson

Assistant
Commissioner Robert Anderson believed that Hutchinson knew too much about what
had happened and considered him a suspect. Many believed Hutchinson had made up
his story and description just to get attention, and possibly be paid for his
story by the press.

Two
women living in the house reported hearing a faint cry of “Murder” around 4
a.m., but being that they were in Whitechapel, neither investigated it.

13 Miller's Court

Police
finally broke into her room at 1:30 p.m. and discovered the true extent of the mutilations.
The abdominal cavity had been emptied, the breasts sliced off, and the face
hacked up beyond recognition. Blood was everywhere. The remains of a fire that
had melted solder on a pot still smoldered in the fireplace.

Mary Jane Kelly

Mary Jane’s body was taken to a mortuary in Shoreditch where Dr. Thomas Bond and Dr.
George Bagster Phillips examined it. The time of death was said to have occurred
between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. Phillips said that the mutilations took about two hours to
perform.

Barnett identified her by recognizing “the
ear and the eyes.”

Shoreditch Town Hall

An
inquest was held on November 12 at Shoreditch Town Hall and lasted one day.

Dr. Bond

Phillips
stated that she was killed by a slash to the throat and was cut up afterwards.
According to Dr. Bond the murder was not committed by someone with any medical
skills, “In each case the mutilation
was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my
opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse
slaughterer or a person accustomed to cut up dead animals.”

Mary
Jane Kelly was buried on November 19, 1888 at St Patrick’s Roman Catholic
Cemetery in public grave number 66, row 66, plot 10. Joseph Barnett and her
landlord John McCarthy attended the funeral. In the 1950s, Mary Jane Kelly’s
grave was reclaimed. A plain marker was put in the vicinity of the grave in the
1990s.

Suspects

This
ended the murder spree of Jack the Ripper. It has been 125 years since that
terrible autumn of 1888. Although many suspects have been identified, no
one has ever been undeniably determined to be Jack the Ripper, Britain’s most
notorious serial killer.

About Me

I
love wine and will take any chance to sip, savor and share it! Hence, Joy’s JOY
of Wine http://joysjoyofwine.blogspot.com,
a weekly blog about all things wine. I've been in the industry for 15
years as a winery owner, marketing director, speaker, writer, wine judge, and
100% vino girl!

I'm
also a professional freelance magazine and book writer uncorking articles about
wine, food, history, travel, cemetery history and culture. My interest in
cemetery culture led to another great, or maybe I should say
"grave" gig, my weekly blog: A Grave Interest http://agraveinterest.blogspot.com where I get to travel around the country and speak about cemetery topics for genealogy, history and
education conferences.

I suppose you could say that wine is my
passion, and cemeteries are my diversion ... into another world.

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